“Oh, girl, I’m so sorry.”

“Why?” Elise asked as she crossed the women’s locker room, peeling off her enormous coat, cheeks still bright red from her unfortunate ten-minute stint outdoors. Grace raised an eyebrow at her from the mirror, in the midst of redoing her eyeliner.

“You didn’t see?”

“See what?” December 20^th, a day where it was cold and blustery enough outside to warrant a million layers, yet the employee lounge at Bennington’s was hotter than hell. She’d be a sweaty mess before she even made it onto the floor. After snatching her holiday vest out of her locker, Elise stuffed her massive parka, gloves, scarf, and hat inside, then struggled to get it closed.

“The schedule,” Grace said, almost hesitantly. “It was just posted… You know, for the holidays.”

Elise stopped wrestling with her locker—because Grace sounded like she was talking to a dead man walking. Swallowing hard, she raced out of the changing room and stormed across the employee snack lounge to the corkboard where two weeks’ worth of schedules were always posted. Management was cutting it close, seeing as the schedule was a day late already, but juggling so many employees who wanted their Christmases off was probably kind of a handful.

She ignored the soft chatter of the few associates on break, eating from their plastic containers of homemade lunches—Elise wasn’t much of a planner and usually ended up at the in-store McDonald’s. Biting down on her lower lip, she scanned the names on the spreadsheet until she found hers.

“Fuck.”

The conversations stopped, but she didn’t care if she’d offended anyone. Her half-decent mood shot straight to hell when she saw that she was scheduled every single fucking day of the holiday “week”. She had New Year’s Eve off, but worked bright and early the next morning. Christmas Eve—2 PM to close. Christmas Day—noon to close. Boxing Day? Yup, working all day too.

“This is such bullshit.” Already on the verge of crying, she could hear the wobble in her voice. Working almost every single day in December had left her nerves frayed and her patience shot, and now she had to work all the busiest days of the year on top of that?

Her watery gaze searched for the signature of the manager, the one responsible for this fuckery, and she snorted like a bull in the arena when she saw Penelope’s name. Of course. Of fucking course. She’d known she had a boatload of punishment pending after skipping out on Black Friday, but this was getting excessive. That complaint from the guy Jack had helped her with must have sealed her fate.

Lips quivering, she stormed back to the locker room, where Grace was finishing up with her lip gloss. Her friend made a face, somewhere between pity and relief—relief that she didn’t have such a monstrous work schedule over the next two weeks, probably.

“I’m sorry, Elise.”

“It’s fine,” she managed, slipping into her holiday vest and wiping under her eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll just make a lot of money. That’s all.”

“Sure.” Grace capped her gloss and tossed it in her locker. “See you out there. I’m with you in toys today.”

“Okay.”

Once she was gone, Elise kicked the nearest locker with all her might, then took a few extra minutes to calm down: wipe the tears away, wait for the colour to drain from her cheeks, and swallow her anger. When she finally did emerge onto the salesfloor, there was Penelope with her pen and clipboard—and a snippy lecture about the importance of punctuality.

* * *

As soon as he realized it was his ex-wife’s name on his cell’s call display, Jack pulled his grocery cart to the side of the aisle and answered immediately.

“Gloria… Hey,” he said in a hushed voice. “Is everything okay? Is Maya okay?”

Normally Gloria was more of a texter, not a caller, unless there was an emergency. If something was wrong with his daughter, who was supposed to come to his place on the 23^rd and stay until Boxing Day, then Jack would abandon his groceries in a second, hop in the car, and break all the local speed limits to get to her.

“Maya’s fine,” Gloria told him, though he could hear the thickness of her voice—something definitely wasn’t right. “It’s my mom. She’s… You know she isn’t doing well.”

Jack exhaled deeply as he rubbed at the prickly winter scruff on his cheek. “Christ, Gloria, I’m sorry.”

Her mom had been fighting various forms of cancer for about five years now, but it was only in the last few months that things really seemed to be deteriorating. There were a few instances where Jack had had to take Maya during the week, using up his few sick days and vacation days, so Gloria could fly down to Florida and be with her mom, fearing that that time was the last time. It hadn’t. The old woman, who had never particularly liked Jack, always pulled through, and for that he was glad. This time, however, something felt different.

“She’s… Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry to do this,” Gloria rambled. She sounded like she was crying—a sound that broke his heart, divorce or no divorce. “They think this will be her last Christmas. For real this time.”

“Fuck.”

“And, y-you can say no, but everyone is going to be with her for Christmas…” Jack closed his eyes tight, already knowing where this was going before she said it. “I want Maya to be able to say goodbye to her abuela before she passes, and it would mean so much to my mom if she had all her grandkids there for Christmas. I know we agreed you would have her this year—”

“Gloria—”

“And I’m really not trying to take her away,” she continued. They’d never created an official custody agreement beyond the fact that they had joint custody. Jack and Gloria had always been able to agree on these sorts of things.

But, god damn it, he didn’t want to this time.

“I promise I’m not,” she cried. “I just don’t know what to do—”

“It’s fine,” he said softly, gripping the shopping cart so that he wouldn’t sink to the ground in the middle of the store. She hiccupped and then fell silent for a few seconds.

“W-what?”

“Maya should be with her grandma,” Jack told her, the pain of each word like yanking out his own teeth. “I know how hard this is for you. I’m not going to…” Be a huge asshole and deny a dying woman the chance to see her granddaughter? “I think she should go.”

“I know she’s been looking forward to Christmas with you,” Gloria said. Jack’s grip tightened on the cart.

“Yeah, I have too. But… It’s fine.”

She didn’t extend a Florida invite to him, but Jack didn’t want it. He got along great with Gloria—less so with her family. No point in making a tough time worse by rehashing old dramas.

“Jack, I owe you so much.”

“Look, I’m at the grocery store,” he said tightly, hoping she couldn’t hear the way this affected him. “Can I call you later? I still want to see her before you go. I… I’m trying to get her that Miss Molly doll. It’s sold out everywhere, but I’m really trying.”

“It’s all she ever talks about,” his ex said with a watery laugh. “I hear it’s nearly impossible to find.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, let’s just talk later.” She sniffled noisily. “Call me and we’ll coordinate. I want you two to see each other before we go, and I’ll pay for you to send her gifts down to my brother’s.”

He wanted to argue, to insist he could pay for it himself, but he couldn’t be on the phone with her anymore—not without breaking down. So, he offered a terse goodbye and hung up.

Jack stood there in the cereal aisle, two boxes of Maya’s favourite already sitting in his cart. With trembling hands and a head steadily filling with fog, he grabbed them and set them back on the shelf. With a few hard blinks, some of the fog cleared, and he pushed onward to shop for a holiday for one—more determined than ever to find that damn doll so Maya’s Christmas would go off without a hitch, whether he was physically with her or not.